A beginner’s guide to Instagram

Instagram is a great site to use for both personal and business content, so we’ve compiled a list of tips to help you get to grips with the site to ensure that you get the most out of it.

Find a balance with your hashtags

Using hashtags is an effective and easy way to increase your reach on Instagram, encourage more engagement and even attract new followers or customers. However, it’s very easy to overdo it with the tags, making your post look messy and potentially losing you some followers.

Try to only hashtag things that are relevant to the photo, using several at the end of your post rather than hashtagging every individual word of a caption. This keeps the message clear whilst still reeling in new followers.

Try to post regularly

If you want to keep your followers engaged, you should ideally be posting new content on a regular basis, although that doesn't mean you need to be posting 10 photos a day.

Posting once daily – or at least every other day – should be frequent enough to keep your current followers interested.

Use the story feature to share exclusive content

Instagram’s story feature is a lot like Snapchat, in that it gives you a platform to post a

10-second image or video for your followers to view for 24 hours.

The story feature is great for sharing snippets of projects or products, and you can experiment with fun features such as Superzoom, Boomerang or Stop-Motion.

You also have the option to go live, which gives your followers a chance to ask you questions and get a glimpse of what you’re up to.

Find relevant content with Explore

The Explore tab is where some of the site’s most popular photos and videos get featured. The photos that are shown are tailored to you according to photos and videos that have been liked or commented on by people you follow. By checking out this tab regularly, you can find new users to follow and interact with.

Chat to your followers

Don’t ignore your most loyal followers who regularly like and comment on your posts, as that's a surefire way to drive people away.

Instead, try to make your followers feel valued. Reply to their comments when you receive them or, if you have the time, go check out their account and like a couple of their photos in return.

Use Instagram to run contests for your customers

Following the business brand-building trend, a lot of businesses and bloggers often launch contests on Instagram to generate more buzz around their content, drive up their interaction and reach more potential followers or customers.

Often, the contest will focus on the chance to win something if users agree to take some kind of participating promotional action, such as following them on certain social media sites, tagging a friend, reposting the offer on their own accounts, and so on.

You can follow KCOM on Instagram at @KCOMHome